If you are worried about a child please contact the Multi-Agency Safeguarding Hub (MASH) on 023 92 688793 / 0845 6710271.
Safeguarding children and young people is everyone’s responsibility.
The Portsmouth Safeguarding Children Partnership (PSCP) replaces the Portsmouth Safeguarding Children Board (PSCB) and will:
- Develop policies and procedures for safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children in the area of the authority.
- Communicate to persons and bodies in Portsmouth the need to safeguard and promote the welfare of children.
- Monitor and evaluate the effectiveness of what is done by the PSCP partners.
- Participate in the planning and commissioning of services for children in the area of Portsmouth to ensure that they take safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children into account.
- Undertake reviews of serious cases and advising the authority and their Board partners on lessons to be learned.
- Ensure there is a coordinated response by the PSCP partners and others to an unexpected death.
- Engage in any other activity that facilitates, or is conducive to, the achievement of its objectives.
PSCP provide multi-agency safeguarding and restorative practice training to those who work with children and families in Portsmouth, with specific training for DSLs. For more information and to book training visit the PSCP website.
The PSCP will be working closely with our neighbouring Local Authority areas (Hampshire, Southampton and Isle of Wight) on key strategies, while maintaining separate action plans. We will have a joint Independent Chair, and will collaborate to review child deaths, ensuring that learning is shared more broadly. We will also share our online policies and procedures.
We will also continue to provide a local multi-agency training offer. More information about the training available to school based staff is available here.
If you are worried about a child, or are concerned about an ongoing issue involving a child, please contact the Multi-Agency Safeguarding Hub (MASH) directly on 0845 671 0271.
FURTHER SAFEGUARDING INFORMATION
Tier 2 co-ordinators
Tier 2 co-ordinators work in the Multi-Agency Safeguarding Hub (MASH) Early Help team to help when cases are assessed as meeting a Tier 2 threshold. The co-ordinators will assist in identifying support needs with the family and act as a critical friend to guide the professional network in undertaking a plan of support including Early Help Assessments (EHA), meetings and effective family plans.
Tier 2 co-ordinators support Portsmouth Safeguarding Children Partnership training in Early Help procedures and advise professionals in the city about procedures, local support services and facilities that may be available for a family. More information and contact details can be found here.
LA Education Link Co-ordinators
LA Link Coordinators are there to support schools with their most vulnerable pupils. They provide information, guidance, challenge and support to schools with a key focus on ensuring the right processes and practice are in place on a multi-agency basis to improve outcomes for children and their families. Key responsibilities include:
- Ensuring that schools and the local authority have a shared view of the vulnerable children on the school roll – list of vulnerable pupils is sent every two weeks followed by comprehensive calls to each individual school
- To further improve the working relationships between schools, Children’s Social Care, the Prevention and Early Help service, health services and the wider network
- To be an allocated point of contact that school can call to talk through individual cases for information and guidance
- Promote completion of an ‘early help assessment’ and the lead professional role where the need is identified
- Promote multi-agency working and effective working relationships
- Support step-down and step-across of cases to another lead professional.
Contact details for link coordinators:
- North – [email protected]
- Central – [email protected]
- South – [email protected]
If you would like further information on the service provided by the LA Education Link Coordinators, please contact Fran Shaul or see the information leaflet.
Sexual harassment and sexual violence between children in schools and colleges
This advice is provided by the Department for Education for governing bodies, proprietors, headteachers, principals, senior leadership teams and designated safeguarding leads. The focus is sexual violence and sexual harassment between children at school and college. For the purposes of this advice, a child is anyone under the age of 18. It provides advice on what sexual violence and sexual harassment is, how to minimise the risk of it occurring and what to do when incidents occur, or are alleged to have occurred.
Safe4me
As part of a commitment to ‘child centred policing’, Hampshire Police has worked in partnership with education experts and youth practitioners to develop Safe4me. It is a web-based resource and information library providing support to schools, partner agencies and parents with keeping children and young people safe and informed about current risks they may face growing up.
Designed as a one-stop shop, the free-to-use website provides a range of subject specific toolkits and sections consisting of useful content such as pre-prepared lesson plans and ideas, activities, advice and additional information from credible organisations. Features include news pages, campaigns, service directories and opportunities to share information or get involved in initiatives.
Ongoing development means that Safe4me will consistently evolve according to risks, demand and need, ensuring it remains current and credible at all times. It is important to future development and the overall of value of Safe4me that users have the opportunity to input their knowledge and expertise to the site, inviting users to share relevant information and resources they feel would be of value to others.
Please consider using Safe4me in the work you do with children, young people and their families, signposting colleagues to the site and encourage parents to refer to the relevant support section to help them, where needed, keep their children safe and informed.
Support and assistance is available Monday to Friday from the police education team via the Safe4me contact page.
Useful resources
PREVENT
For further information or to arrange an appointment please email John Webster.
Prevent and Project Orpheus updates
This bulletin reflects the ongoing work of Project Orpheus alongside any local or national Prevent updates. Read the latest issues here.
PROJECT ORPHEUS
Portsmouth City Council secures 3 year EU funding to tackle radicalisation in partnership with EU coastal cities
Portsmouth City Council have been successful in an EU bid to develop new and innovative approaches to tackle radicalisation. The 3 year funded project named Orpheus will work in partnership with other coastal cities and universities within France, Belgium and Netherlands on online and offline methods to build resilience within young people, online safety and an EU prevention model for violent extremism. The project is supported by local charities and schools, in addition to the Home Office and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, who will distribute the findings when they become available.
For further information, please email [email protected] or [email protected] or visit the Safer Portsmouth website.